china doll
by pukechan
Summary: "You're a menace to my soul yet you're the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life." Hinata flinches visibly at the amount plastered in his screen but seeing the message below, he grins nonetheless. "Big words from a guy behind a screen." "Likewise," Atsumu typed almost immediately. "Let's change that."


Atsumu was bored.

What other layman's term could possibly describe the apathetic emotional state he's currently dealing with. No, scrap that. There were no other words to justify the exhaustion he felt at this very moment.. and it was only the beginning of the week. Japan is made up of a hundred million people and not a single person piqued his interest. It was starting to bother him, in fact— how robotic everyone was, like he's stuck in a loop. The only difference was the lack of Osamu and his former teammates.

Has it always been this… dreary without his annoying brother? Did he really take the years he spent at Inarizaki High for granted? Because right now nothing excites him anymore. Even excitement was probably an exaggeration at this point.

He isn't depressed, no. Atsumu agrees to the idea that he functions well as a human being. Nothing has really changed with the way he acts, being the people pleaser that he was. His state of mind and how he feels, however, was a can full of worms that he desperately wants to bury. He reckons that this may have been the effect of hanging out with Kiyoomi. Why else is he starting to internalize similarly to his team's outside hitter?

It surely is taking a toll on him, his mind would say, and yet waking up every single day at ass o'clock in the morning to strut his way to class as the demand of people pushed in his line of direction asks for a photo with him, or just talk to him in general— this all seems bleak from an outside perspective, let alone the fact that this has been a daily occurrence, but if you aren't a Miya and the Atsumu at that, nobody could fathom the satisfaction he felt with all this attention. Every. Single. Time. He beams at the idea despite his inner monologue not so long ago. Perks of being a star player in their university's volleyball team.

How troublesome. He'd tell himself internally as the shutters of modern phone were heard, finally letting go of the breath he wasn't aware he's holding in, plastering a perfectly rehearsed smile that always made people swoon over him. In no time he'll hear the same old discussion at the hallway, cafeteria, classrooms and locker rooms.

_Atsumu Miya is not like every other star players across the country, he's perfect._  
_Atsumu Miya is as flawless in the sports magazines AND in real life. Jealous._  
_Atsumu Miya smiled at me and he was kind enough to take a photo with me._

He wonders if that's all there is to him. A flavor of the month.

This has always been a routine for the past two years upon entering university. They feature a star player who's recently graduated in high school, flaunt them in publications and social media, train the poor souls to death and the rest is history. Sugar, spice and all things not nice. One fine result in the form of Atsumu Miya, a product of gung-ho coaches and bitter bench warmers.

Atsumu was humble.

Despite his lack of interest towards people in general, he was quite thankful hearing the crowd roar in favor of their team, most especially when they're present in every event and games to show their support to the Miya Atsumu explicitly. What are star players without the fans, right?

The girls nod their head politely as he did the same, slightly pushing the door open which lead to his Literature class. Most of the seats were already occupied. He always made it a point to wake up early not because of morning classes but to take his sweet, sweet time fixing his do and freshening up. Atsumu's hair stood at amazing directions in the morning. Sometimes he opts for morning showers instead of evening, only if it wasn't winter.

Atsumu takes his usual seat in the middle row where he could pay attention the most. While he preferred his seat far back, the row has been infiltrated by jocks who were only in this class for mandatory minors. Considering how he was a jock himself, maintaining a little above average class marks has always been in his line of concern since high school. Being an athlete should not be a hindrance (or excuse) to anyone's academic performance.

A yawn escapes from Atsumu as they wait for class to start. To spare him from an utter state of languor, he digs out his phone to check the news, Twitter, mails.. whatever keeps his mind off from shutting down. Deciding that sports news doesn't have anything to offer, he clicks on his Twitter app, mindlessly scrolling through the trending feed but not before receiving an influx of notification signifying the lack of activity he's made in this account since his last visit.

He didn't bother pressing any of his mentions and direct messages. If it was so important then people can reach him via text message or business email. After all, he only created a Twitter account to post about sports and MSBY related news. Over 40,000 followers, 16 retweets and 1 Atsumu-generated post later, the account already graced its way to one of the few verified accounts among men's volleyball league pro-players in Japan.

Seriously, how does his only post amass a number of activity? It was just a "Hi." Atsumu remembers skimming through the replies. It was… something, to say the least.

_val(erie)_  
_hip_dys19_  
_omgomgomOMGOM G IS THIS THE ReaL ATSUMU MIYA HI_

_✧ ceo of atsumu miya fc ✧_  
_ atsuwaifu_  
_welp might fuck around and become an atsumu miya fan account_

_S._  
_ ominomi_  
_Lol eboy._

Atsumu should know enough not to look for familiar names in the still-growing-up-to-this-day thread even if the last user handle and their way of typing shows signs of similarity to a fuckboy-allergic teammate of his. Kiyoomi can never be impressed no matter how hard anyone tries.

"Looks like someone's been jacking it all night to milfs. What's gotten you in the dumps, Kindaichi?" A couple of snickers were heard from behind. First off, what's wrong with milfs?

"Oh shut up Kawanishi-san," He hears the sound of a chair scraping the floor. The guy must have woken up from his light nap. "Anyway, what's wrong with milfs?" Ah, a mind reader, this Kindaichi guy. Also a man of culture.

"Nothing man, nothing at all! We ain't kink shaming here!"

"You sure you know about that stuff though?" There's mirth in his tone. "Aren't you like, gay, Yu-chan?"

Atsumu catches the sound of sparks when an eight year old shoves its fork in a socket thinking that he'd suddenly acquire the power All Might has bestowed Midoriya Izuku. He doesn't watch anime but a fan compared him to the buff hero. He doesn't see the resemblance. He doesn't know if he should take offense knowing All Might had two forms— does this fan indulge in his egocentric front and inner turmoil or did she see him as a fucking sham? He doesn't understand why he remembers this memory now. He doesn't know why he's still listening to the "friendly" banter exchanged behind him.

"Nah man I'm straight." Kindaichi corrects him. "So yes, I have the slightest idea about.. milfs."

"Is that so?" Kawanishi chuckles. "Nice."

"Yeah. Nice." Who were they trying to fool..?

Everyone in the room knew they were both lying.

And Atsumu wishes it was Friday already.

"Now, now you two! Nothing's wrong with milfs or being gay." Oya? A new challenger appears? Atsumu cocks his head to see Sarukui Yamato, a Fukurodani alumni and Bokuto's former teammate. They never had a conversation but as formalities persist, he nods his head sparingly. Sarukui returns the gesture.

"This is just friendly banter. Don't worry about it." As he mentioned earlier, a mind reader.

"He's right. Sorry if it startled you, Sarukui-san. Sorry you guys!"

"Excuse me, not to burst your nose bubble but why are you doing that?"

Kawanishi tilts sideward. "Huh? Do what?"

"That thing…" Kindaichi imitates him, without his tongue out. "The thing those Youtube vloggers do in the beginning of their video. Oikawa-san does the same in his Snapchats."

It must be lovely to keep tabs of your former team mates. Now that Atsumu thinks about it, he never really took it upon his time to see what his team mates have been up to recently. Three years were enough time to form solid bonds. Last time he heard from them in Inarizaki's LINE group was when Akagi roomed with Shirabu Kenjirou of Shiratorizawa in his dorm and had a thing for a few weeks. Started and ended with a bang. There were probably a few more chats afterwards before he muted the group. He should feel guilty.

Somehow, he was okay like this.

"The only thing I see here is your thing for Oikawa-san." He was not okay with this.

This time the chair was scraped louder, followed by a loud thump. "MY WHAT NOW?"

"We get it, Kindaichi. You got the hots for your former captain. I'd watch him livestream any day." Hearing the last sentence, Atsumu sits up a bit. Pretty setter Oikawa Tooru doing a livestream? Spicy.

"Not surprising to assume that. He's a pretty setter after all, but no, I don't see Oikawa-san that way." How in the world does this turnip head always manages to say what's on his mind?

Kawanishi acts surprised but looks like he has something more to say. "Oh right now I remember, you don't like Oikawa but you did like his kouhai. My bad, I got them mixed up." He sticks his fucking tongue out again.

Oikawa's kouhai? He couldn't possibly be talking about—

"Yeah ok, Kageyama was the person I liked." Kindaichi sighs in defeat, pulling his chair up for him to use as a foot stool to sit on the table. Atsumu cringes. "Both of us had our differences and sorted out issues we never bothered trying to fix. Mostly one-sided, honestly. We're cool now."

Kageyama Tobio. The bane of his existence. He considered him a rival of the century. The guy could toss a neat set. No doubt the raven haired crow has been making an impact with his mean spikes. He assumes this under Ushikawa's supervision. Talk about being a goody two shoes.

"Ask him to hang out with you. Swoon the king with your milf knowledge."

"Funny you suggested. I did ask him out."

Kawanishi leans closer.

Sarukui leans closer.

The fucking class leans closer. Secretly, of course.

"AND?"

And… Kindaichi sighs for the 50th time within the last 10 minutes. "As expected, he turned me down." He turns his gaze upwards, asking for divine intervention. "I have a sneaking suspicion that he's still into his best friend."

A series of "aww's" and sniffs were heard. Kindaichi spins his head so fast Atsumu thought it was going to fall off. He shoots everyone a glare.

"Hey! I remember a nasty rumor about that last year." A nameless scrub chimed in to their discussion. "Isn't Kageyama's best friend the camboy Oikawa had an affair with when he was in Brazil last summer?"

Kindaichi raises a brow at the guy and shrugs. "I'm not going to divulge into that and start another issue. The little guy is cool. He's always present in every Karasuno match. Kageyama introduced him around the same month we resolved our dispute."

Atsumu tried to recall the series of incidences that happened last year. He's definitely heard something similar before in the locker room. Hanging out with Bokuto does that to anyone. The outside hitter doesn't directly involve himself with petty rumors but oddly enough, team mates confide in him to see his reaction. They're comical most of the time but he finds Fukurodani's former star setter, Akaashi Keiji's humor more tasteful.

Polar opposites as they were, Bokuto and Akaashi, the pair will be celebrating their 5 year anniversary next week. And as Bokuto's boyfriend, this meant that his principles were an extension of Akaashi's. He wasn't fond of entertaining hearsays. The guy is totally whipped, he could lap the setter's foot if he asked. Almost as whipped as Kindaichi not realizing he was emitting an air around him that says "drop the topic or I'll scream."

"Wow you really like Kageyama.. Mentioning Chibi-chan turned your mood sour. Let's drop this now before you start screaming." Seriously what the hell is up with these telepathic people? "I'd lowkey tap Chibi-chan if given the chance so I feel you Kindai-chin, I feel you."

Whether Kindaichi's face turned bright red from the compliment this scrub said about a potential rival or he did not appreciate the cutesy nickname he offhandedly created, he tried to hide the blush dusting his cheeks but not before slamming his fist on the table. It looks like he was about to say something about the comment until the door slams open. The professor drops her books on the table, indicating that class was about to start.

So. That was a rather bizarre turn of events. Atsumu usually didn't keep his ears open for those kinds of conversation. He finds it strange visualizing a person he knew from practice and official matches having a life of their own.

Take Kageyama Tobio, for example. The kid has a reputation for being stoic. His sexuality? Volleyball. Relationship status? Schweiden Alders' setter. He was exclusive to both titles. Well, now he knows there's a small cleft in his exceptional façade, he wonders what Tobio-chan's muse was like.

Guess Friday can wait for a bit.

* * *

This is probably the most out of character thing Atsumu has ever done in his life but all he could think about was that he's got nothing else to do. What is there to lose? He was curious as fuck for all the inexplicable reasons.

Atsumu sets his water bottle by the nightstand before collapsing on his bed. He pulls out his phone from his back pocket. How does one initiate this?

To put out all the info relayed by the scrubs from his morning class, he lists down the important details to track the infamous "chibi-chan". So far he has: Kageyama Tobio and Oikawa Tooru.

He assumes Tobio has active social medias. Athletes were not particularly required to do so but having one that's accessible helps boost their popularity.

It doesn't help that Atsumu's follow page had none at all so he drags himself to type Tobio's name on Twitter's search bar. True enough, his verified account stands proud at 70,000 followers. He immediately clicks on the follow list although Atsumu was fairly certain "chibi-chan" won't be there. Of the three accounts he follow, none of them were for personal use. Tobio only follows News, Schweiden Adlers Official and the damn curry company he had his commercial on.

He tries to broaden the hunt by using Google but all he sees is a bunch of sports news articles and video compilations. An Instagram account caught his sight but to his dismay, it was private and unused, judging from the 2005 crazy frog profile picture it had.

Atsumu pauses for a bit. Kageyama Tobio was a private person, expectedly so, and knowing the mishap from last year, he had no choice but to cross out Tobio from the search.

This leaves him to Oikawa Tooru, the Grand King of high school volleyball… and publicity stunts.

He never had a single interaction with the setter but people talk and he simply didn't give a damn when they hyped him up back then.

And so the quest for Oikawa Tooru's accounts is set in motion. Upon searching, it narrows down to three most active: Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. There's no way Atsumu's browsing two hundred Twitter users in his follow list so he settles for his Instagram. Thankfully the app has a search function for both follow and followers list. Luck was not on his side yet again as he sees zero related accounts no matter how many combinations of chibi-chan he attempted. He curses under his breath.

Eventually, he gives up. Tomorrow's another day. Turnip guy might send telepathic signals to his row again and maybe Atsumu can get another hint? A full name, perhaps?

After about five minutes of screen break from his phone, Atsumu decided to take a peek of Oikawa's Youtube. No harm watching a few videos to see if he's hot shit.

As if his header was not grand enough, a video autoplays the moment the page loads its thumbnails and buttons. Suddenly, he regrets loading the page at all.

"YAAHOOO~ WHAT'S COOKIN WHAT'S POPPIN IT'S YA BOI, OIKAWA TOORU AND WELCOME TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL!" Atsumu closes this shit in an instant but not before seeing the fucking tongue. Needless to say, Kindaichi was excused.

Right. Today was another waste then. All this unsuccessful totally-not-stalking-just-casually-researching only caused dread to Atsumu's deteriorating existence.

Not only did he find out that Oikawa Tooru was a fucking clown, his underclassman had a more thrilling summer break (totally-not-a-stressful-scandal) and the fact drives him nuts.

To add more insult to the injury, Tobio had more followers because of a dumb advertisement a foolish production company haphazardly came up with (we all see Tobio looking around for the camera ya idoits), Atsumu was livid. He could have done better.

I really don't care, he tells himself caringly as he cares deeply. Atsumu can feel the hot guy summer in him defrosting. It's not even May yet.

Speaking of May.. the miserable extra mentioned Oikawa's affair last summer. Surely Oikawa has that documented somewhere among hundreds of videos he produced. Brilliant. The search continues then. Atsumu reminds himself to thank him tomorrow for adding necessary plot device.

He revisits the Youtube page and clicks on the video tab. A number of thumbnails started popping out one by one. Each preview had captions in bright neon text. He drags a finger through the screen, searching for Brazil and summer in its title.

At this point, Atsumu should just open every video from March-October last year because all of them showcased the sunny country. After a few moments, he picks out a random video called "Fever Dream Summer" from May.

Oikawa appears on the screen, behind him was a white sandy beach which had the most turquoise-blue water Atsumu's ever seen. The place looks incredibly laidback and beautiful in the face of multitude of locals gathered on a fine sunny day. Judging from how much Oikawa was having fun, it's like he's in own paradise. In his mind he concludes how he could never achieve that kind of enthusiasm.

The camera adjusts so that it shows the background. Oikawa narrates what he sees: from his surroundings to the people nearby. They don't particularly know him, Atsumu presumes as people did their best to keep themselves at arm's length from his camera. The quality was top-notch at 1080p so it must have cost a couple of grand.

"Oikawa-san! Wait up.." Atsumu hears a tiny voice who was panting breaths for his life. Sounds like he ran a marathon. "You run so fast I can't keep up with you anymore."

Oikawa rolls his eyes. "That's because you're too small for my brisk walking." The camera swivels to show his watchers the person he was with, but not before the orange-haired kid hides his face. He looks shy and frail.

"Bwah, this reeks. It's not like I'm 160 cm anymore… Besides, I'm catching up fast since the last time we jogged together!" The tiny voice brags, he sounds very eager about it.

"Baby steps. A truly fitting skill for chibi-chan."

**!**

Atsumu's ears perked up. Did he just hear the word he's been looking for the past hour? Or was his mind playing tricks?

The noise coming out of his phone became a blur, his focus lost in a sea of thoughts. The object of his interest suddenly within reach. Almost. Attentively, he pays extra attention to the scene before him.

Nothing of importance was being played out in the video. Atsumu concentrates on hearing chibi-chan, a voice so soft yet so vigorous.

The video goes on and about. Oikawa found a spot to play one on one beach volleyball with chibi-chan. Ignoring the terrible camera angle (mostly because it was facing chibi-chan's back, nobody can see what he looks like), Atsumu admired the way they played even if the video speed was rolled 4x faster. Breath catches his throat as the video speed slowed down to show the viewers how chibi-chan jumped an impressive height from where he was standing, almost reaching the net.

He wonders what it would be like to set for this guy. Atsumu felt the magnetic draw to him.

Ten minutes into the video, the pair took a break. Beads of sweat evident from their faces after an hour's worth of volleyball. The screen shakes for a bit, it rotates so that the focus is zoomed in at Oikawa shirtless on the beach, his swim trunks hanging low enough to reveal his perfectly crafted abs. Atsumu hears chibi-chan getting flustered as the setter grins at the camera, grasping his tiny free hand to rub all over Oikawa's abdomen. Sensually.

What a fucking turn on. This guy knows how to play well, in every way possible.

In the wake of a newfound sensual tension apparent from the eyes of onlookers, Oikawa talks about his friendship with chibi-chan. Apparently they met way before Kindaichi but was introduced to each other in a similar fashion. Both of them were transparent— whereas Oikawa did not approve of chibi-chan hanging out with Tobio because he was a distraction, chibi-chan admired him greatly for being his best friend's upperclassman and drive to become a better setter.

As the conversation progressed, Atsumu caught the slip of nickname when Oikawa was gushing about how glad he was for giving this friendship a chance when he never even thought of speaking to him ever during high school. From there on, "Shou-chan" was never uttered again.

Just when Atsumu expected the topic to be over with, it was surprisingly dragged on longer and Oikawa was now sharing the happenstance of meeting Shou-chan in a foreign country three years after their introduction.

He talks about teaching Shou-chan how to set and serve.

He talks about tutoring Shou-chan to learn more Portuguese.

He talks about bonding with Shou-chan since he was the only Japanese around.

He talks about claiming Shou-chan's firsts, open for interpretation.

To summarize half of the entire video's content, Oikawa describes the time he spent with Shou-chan a passionate summer tryst he was willing to venture over and over again. He says this as his dominant hand squeezes Shou-chan's thigh. Sensually.

And then.. the video was over before he knew it.

He didn't even notice when but he feels stiffness pulsing as it strains against his joggers.

Atsumu was confused.

* * *

Every once in a while, Atsumu browses for porn to relieve himself. When he was too tired to pick up girls (or guys) in the club, he'd open a dating app and invite them in his flat. A swipe to the right and a few lines of sweet talk, minimal effort to get you laid? It was so ideal to him.

There was no shame in porn and hook ups, it's quite common in this culture anyway. As much as it pains him to do so, he imagines Osamu doing the same thing when he gets the chance, and maybe even more.

For some reason there's something weird yet oddly thrilling about purposely entering a site to look for a specific person. And to what? The question remains unanswered. Watching Shou-chan from Oikawa's video is proof enough that his body meant business. Dismissing the fact that he knew what Shou-chan does, the last thing he could visualize is him participating in this line of work. Nothing wrong with it though. He just looked so.. innocent.

Finding Shou-chan's main livestream site did not take him too long compared to when he only had chibi-chan typed in the search bar. Out of ten chibi-chan related camsites, Atsumu confirms an account when he sees the same orange head. He enters the site to find a still-moving grainy screen and a moderately active chat box.

On the right side, he sees lines of texts moving upwards per second, most of them praising Shou-chan's looks and asking a lot of questions. On the left side is a screen where the viewers watch, below the stream player is what he assumes as the title for today's show: "My Viewer Monday Q&A!"

How cute.

Atsumu blinks at his phone, baffled as to why the screen was so grainy. As he clicks on Shou-chan's hair, a window popped up. "To view the stream in full, please sign up!" it says. Ah.

One reason Atsumu doesn't have a lot of accounts in the first place compared to most guys his age: the process of signing up. There's something about filling out data online that made him exasperated. It wasn't a lot of work but the effort, he can do without.

Before tapping on the button to complete the process, he noticed the username he supplied in the box. Atsumu was so used having the same credentials on every personal accounts he had, he forgets that this is the first time he signs up for a porn site. His coach will chew him out when he finds out.

So he musters up the first three words that came in his mind: _samu_god_jp_

Samu because he's not dumb enough to put tsumu or Atsumu for the site to trace the account back to him. Samu because he genuinely misses his brother, he'd know how to help him with his dilemma if he was around. Samu because… just in case.. and he'd be in less trouble.

God because he needs one right now.

Jp because mother fucking Nihon bitch.

After reviewing his information one last time, Atsumu is now successfully signed up in the site. There's an email for verification and he's never tapped on a link so hard ever. He reloads the site and waits for the stream to load.

Atsumu was expecting a plethora of horny boys in chat, begging for their chibi-chan to take off his black Karasuno hoodie and play with himself.. or something like that because.. that's what he would've done.

The stream finally loads… and Atsumu was in love?

Breath catches in his throat the second time this evening, an establishing pattern instigated by the sunshine revealed in his device. This time, it was his turn to describe chibi-chan.

Where does Atsumu even begin?

Shou-chan flashes a crooked smile as he converses with the viewers in chat, pearly white teeth baring between fleshy light-pink lips and Atsumu finds this endearing.

Shou-chan's eyes flew open after contemplating which words to say and Atsumu couldn't even blink, lost in the sight of the most breathtaking caramel brown eyes he's ever seen.

Shou-chan's almost-heart-shaped face was crowned by a mop of bright orange hair, falling in curves around his face and neck, soft, unruly waves everywhere else.

Shou-chan wrinkles his button nose seeing the first rude chat of the night and Atsumu wants nothing more than to kick the shin out of this 'moonshima31' person when they wrote "if you can't grow height at least grow some brain"

Is this… is this what simping is like? Oh god, is this the karma he gets making fun of Hirugami and Hoshiumi's power dynamic in their relationship? Life is uno-reversing the hell out of him. It should bother him right? But why.. does his heart flutter, distracted just by hearing Shou-chan's voice? What is this?

What made you hate your body? You're so perf. :c 3 Also ignore moonshima he's just jealous that you're so cute!

Shou-chan reads the question before answering. "My dream has always been to become a famous volleyball player, and I won't gush about how or why, you already know that."

He laughs heartily before adjusting the camera in an angle where he's at chin length and the ceiling is visible. Removing himself from his seat, he flops on the bed, rolling around once before standing up.

"My bed is a foot length from the ground and from where I'm standing, the ceiling is around... uhh.. twelve feet high?" It was a rhetorical question but the way Shou-chan folds his arms across his chest, both eyes and mouth furrowed close as if he's in deep thought, made the viewers actually calculate. Atsumu snorts at the screen before checking the chat room. What a dork.

Shou-chan's eyes flicker open, realizing there's no point in keeping his litany. "To save everyone from doing math, my height at the moment is 170cm but when I was younger, I stand at 162cm. The numbers in comparison aren't crazy big but in volleyball, every centimeter counts..."

Atsumu nods in approval. Sure, he qualified in height for every sports screening so he can never relate to Shou-chan's situation but with the amount of individuals trying to earn a starting line-up from his high school, Inarizaki High, the closest to volleyball the new students and non-referral players can get is becoming their ball boy. Not only did their team focus on skills but height is greatly considered in the game. As far as Atsumu knows, this applied to thriving schools in all prefectures.

"Volleyball is a sport where you compete in height and natural power. What sort of scene is on the other side? What will I be able to see there? Before I knew it, the wall was already too high for me to climb. It blocked the path where I can view from the top. A scenery I will never be able to see." Shou-chan slides his head downwards, there's a sad look in his feature. "My enthusiasm wasn't enough to keep my love for the sport and into a team. It's not like me to give up but over the years I realized it isn't my place to stay, and maybe, just maybe, some things weren't meant to be."

Atsumu's heart wrenched hearing the pain in Shou-chan's voice. Of the few hours he spent watching and listening, one thing was certain: he never wants to hear him choke a sob as he shares his story. Shou-chan was meant to be happy and he'd do what it takes to make that happen. Is it unusual to feel this sort of attachment to a guy he's never met before?

Just this morning, he was complaining to the world how dull his life was, that even volleyball, a sport he was sure he loved, did not cut him slack. Everything he wanted, he had. Money, popularity and raw talent.

And Shou-chan.

He may not know what his past was like but he can tell, anyone can tell, how he's the type to work hard to achieve his dreams. Anyone can tell how much he loves volleyball. Anyone can tell by watching Oikawa's video. Anyone can tell it must have taken him years of training to perfect his skills.

For the world to deprive him the passion he felt during his youth because of these circumstances— how unfair.

The desolation entangled inside Atsumu's chest was disrupted as Shou-chan answers a new question. This time he's sitting on a chair, eyes puffy and slightly red, probably from forcing himself not to weep in front of the camera. There's a small smile in his face, reassuring the audience that he's okay. God, everything about him is so soft.

"Um, I work 6 hours a day and then stream whenever I can for extra money." He trails to where his finger is pointing, down to the direction where a small donation box with cursive text was written. "Not going to tell what my work is to avoid stalkers, sorry!"

Below the stream video player, Atsumu sees four banners with short paragraphs in each section, namely: About Me, Stream Details, Donation Box and Donation Details.

Atsumu reads through Shou-chan's profile. Ignoring the ridiculous amount of pastels and weird text faces, a portion caught his attention. There are package deals for certain amounts of donation.

For 25 cherries, you can avail custom colors.  
For 50 cherries, you can avail Chibi-chan emotes for global use.  
For 100 cherries, you can request a song.  
For 500 cherries, you can be invited to call for 30 mins or message for an hour.  
For 1000 cherries, you can send a buddy request and be approved.

Before Atsumu begins his 10 page essay about his experience so far, he heaves a breath in slow paces because boy is this going to be messy. First of all, cherries, adorable. Second, the idea of rewarding viewers for purchasing a.. service (?) is a common tactic used in streaming, based from what he remembers in Kenma's live gaming videos. To apply this strategy in a sacrilegious site to commit sacrilegious acts.. Atsumu can't tell if it was smart or overkill.. which brings the next topic in hand: the amenities.

Custom colors and emotes? Understandable. Even if Atsumu was not the type of person to watch streams of any kind, he recognizes the concept of subscription. Consider this as volleyball: if he sees more people watching and supporting his games, he thrives. When he does, his performance level spikes, which is beneficial to his team's winning factor. In Chibi-chan's terms, viewers donate and Chibi-chan.. shares more content? Yes? That's how it must be. The colors and emotes were just tools to make them look like cool kids in chat. Atsumu may not be the smartest guy in the hay but he was not born from yesterday.

Requesting a song is self-explanatory but Atsumu pondered whether it was worth that much cherry. Wait, why does he care? The line of reasoning when it came to Shou-chan was limitless.

The last two services (?) were the highlight of the donation box. He was surprised to see a scattering amount of names listed in both. Atsumu was tempted to erase everyone so that his name was the only one in it.

Skimming through the entire profile again, he finds out that Shou-chan doesn't always perform nsfw every stream time and today was one of the rare days where he's completely wholesome. The palm of Atsumu's left hand figured this out not so long ago.

In conclusion, everything in this site is dumb and why he had the gall to remain in the stream for over an hour was beyond him but… he was Atsumu fucking Miya, bored, humble, confused, and all things considered.. in love?

There were no other words to justify the exhilaration he felt at this very moment.. and it was only the beginning of Tuesday morning. Japan is made up of a hundred million people and not a single person piqued his interest… until now. It was starting to bother him, what he's about to do— how he mechanically types in a huge sum of dosh like it was pocket change. The only difference was the emotion he felt from the lack of response. A few minutes later, he scores one. And as one goes, Atsumu types a comeback to the fruit head's taunt almost immediately.

* * *

**samu_god_jp has gifted 5000 cherries!  
**Message:  
"You're a menace to my soul yet you're still the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life."

Hinata pauses for a moment to check if his eyes were deceiving him. He rubs both eyes for everyone to see. Hinata also did the math, as much as he hated doing so…

The site has a donation system and the currency they use is called "cherry". It is also international based but has the option to choose local viewers only. Hinata opted for international viewers since that's how he gets most of his traffics. A dollar is equivalent to 1 cherry. A dollar is worth a hundred yen or so. If a dollar is multiplied to five-thousand.. he gets five thousand dollars… Right? Or is there a new age mathematics that he isn't aware of because how is this stranger able to afford—

Before he could formulate a conclusion, his thoughts were interrupted as more notifications kept popping off. He also failed to realize that he's been staring at the screen for five whole minutes. Hinata's face heats up in embarrassment.

_Greatkingx420x: ? did my screen freeze or hwat_  
_chibichan_stan: samu broke Chibi-chan hahahahaha_  
_daddyxlongxdesk: This guy has no life_  
_vomitchant: Shaking my bread…. To be honest family…_  
_T Chibi: life is not daijobu.. please be my daddy samu_

Hinata scrolls up a bit to see this samu person's messages in chat. To his surprise, there were none. Usually Hinata doesn't bother looking up profiles of his audience unless he had to block or report them for spam. Curiosity gets the best of him, however, as he clicks on the name to see if samu was a regular or a big shot contributor because there is no way this random man..or woman is giving away 6 months' worth of rent within a snap of a finger. Yet again to his surprise, the account was made today and more specifically, two hours ago.

Hinata squints his eyes and flattens his hair to imitate a certain friend of his. How does one play this out?

Still displayed in the screen, Hinata reads the donation pop-up again. This time he speaks them out, word per word.

"Samu dot got dot jp has gifted five thousand cherries." Hinata flinches visibly at the amount plastered in the screen but seeing the message below, he grins nonetheless. "You're a menace to my soul yet you're still the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life." Then he adds, "Big words from a guy behind a screen."

It wasn't like him to pay attention to anything for a long period of time, let alone a random person, but right now he was doing the exact opposite because, yeah, he gets way less donation from the one he just got from samu. Four thousand less and all from different patrons.

Yeah, he's curious about this guy.. or girl, because.. who wouldn't? Here's a narration of my life so far, chapter fifteen in, that would be five hundred thousand yen, thank you very much. How does this makes sense? It simply does not make sense at all… Thinking about it, he doesn't think anymore… as samu pinged Hinata in chat.

samu_god_jp** : Chibi-chan**  
samu_god_jp** : Likewise  
** samu_god_jp** : Let's change that.**

His eyes widen as he gets another notification.

samu_god_jp **has sent a buddy request!**

Hinata was fucked.

* * *

**notes**: what's up. this is also posted in ao3 just sayin. not sure how to link in haha

leave a like or review if you enjoyed this.  
you can find me on twitter: atsumuloml


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